Dreams
by Gia279
Summary: One-shot. Adam wakes up with itchy feet, decides to take a walk. Let's see where it'll take him. spoilers for The Dream Thieves, so good luck. Pairing of AP x RL


FIRST ONE SHOT: Dreams/ Closer by Nine Inch Nails

**Adam Parrish**

There was something different about Monmouth tonight. Adam wasn't sure what it was. It was possible that the reason it felt different because he wasn't often at Monmouth in the middle of the night—midnight, to be exact. To be even more exact, 12:13 AM. His brain had jolted him from sleep a half hour earlier, shooting his body up and out of bed before he'd had time to understand what was so urgent. And he still didn't, not really.

Some part of him had woken up, desperate and needing the walk, and so he'd walked. He had a car, thanks to Gansey's sister. But he walked.

Now Monmouth loomed over him in the dark, sturdy but old, like a wizened and cranky old woman holding court over Henrietta. There weren't any cars outside, which made sense. Gansey had mentioned he was going to see someone and would be back as soon as possible. That had seemed to piss Blue off. But she seemed pretty angry a lot lately—since her mother disappeared, fleeing after Glendower the way Gansey wanted to.

Ronan was probably at his own house, with his mother—since she was awake now, and he and his brothers could live at home again.

Noah would still be up there. Unless he was with Blue. But he'd never go into Blue's house, so maybe that was wrong. If his friends weren't around, did Noah bother to exist? Or did he just wait, wherever ghosts waited if they didn't want to waste energy?

"I'm here," Noah said from next to Adam, who jolted as if Noah had thrown something.

"Why do you _do_ that?" he demanded waspishly, more angry at himself than Noah.

He shrugged. "You were thinking about me. I was upstairs. But I'm going to Gansey."

"Where is he?" Adam's stomach jolted hard. "Is he alright?"

Noah shrugged again, fading from sight until only a faint chill was left.

Adam scowled. _Ghosts and dreams and Cabeswater and Blue, nothing around here is ever just, oh he just wants company, it's just a tree, you had a nightmare, what's dead is dead. _ He felt bad about that last part, because it made him wonder if he was wishing Noah away.

Movement caught his eye. Something had moved past one of the windows. Adam's eyes narrowed. Someone was in Monmouth. If Noah was messing with him, he didn't find it very funny.

"Well? Did you let someone up there?" he demanded into the night, his voice surprisingly loud. He let out a frustrated huff and started toward the door, keeping quiet automatically. There were too many things ingrained from childhood about opening doors at night to swing it open, even with aggression tightening his gait.

It didn't occur to him that his skulking could cause the intruder to become equally aggressive.

When he opened the door at the top of the stairs, something swung at him, but before he could register what it was, something silvery flashed in his vision, a voice muttered something in his head, and he snapped up his forearm in defense.

Knuckles slapped into his flesh with bruising force, nearly knocking him back down the stairs; he grabbed his assailant and dug in his fingers while the man growled something.

The voice triggered recognition in the far recesses of his brain, but whatever had flashed in Adam's vision was still protecting him—he pulled the man forward, then shoved him off balance.

"-fucking _damn it, _Parrish, it's me, you shithead."

The swearing got through. Adam blinked. "Ronan?"

"No _shit._" Ronan eased back and lifted his chin. "I _live _here."

The words _No you don't_ started to bubble to Adam's lips, but what he said was, "Your car."

A muscle in Ronan's jaw ticked. "I left it."

Adam wanted to ask if he'd woken recently too, from a dream, but he didn't know how to bring up dreams with Ronan—his dreams were not like Adam's dreams, though Adam was beginning to suspect his own dreams were not normal anymore, either.

"Did you see Noah?" Adam asked instead.

Ronan shook his head, eyes narrowed dangerously.

Adam sighed. "Did you want to be alone? Then I'll leave. I thought someone was in here that _doesn't _live here."

"Why were you here? Where's your car?" The questions were shot out like bullets, hot and fast. And accusing.

"I left it," Adam snapped, because he was annoyed. "I woke up—and I needed a walk. I came here, because I forgot Gansey was out of town."

A strange look passed over Ronan's face at that, but it was gone before Adam could decipher it. He assumed that it was something about Gansey.

"Anyway, I thought you weren't here. Your mom." Adam clamped his mouth shut. He wasn't sure how to talk about parents. He wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of parents, ones that are missed not like an addictive and harmful drug but like warmth and safety and a favorite song.

"I was at home," Ronan said with deliberate slowness. "But I felt like Monmouth shouldn't be empty."

What he was implying was that they were bad friends for leaving Gansey in this big, rambling place by himself while he and Adam, people who had no right to someone like Gansey, people who had been lonely and knew what it felt like, people who owed him, were off on their own, like he didn't matter.

And he was right. Gansey would never blame them—he couldn't. He'd keep it to himself. He was trying to help, but he didn't know how, because in his family, money solved things, and in life, it solved things, too, but it meant nothing if it wasn't your own, which his family didn't quite understand.

They were the family that gave money to the poor family struggling during the holidays, not realizing how painful it was to accept that that family, the father, the mother, couldn't provide for their children. They would only see their own good deed.

Adam shook himself. "Gansey isn't here," he pointed out, his tone defensive.

Something about Ronan at that moment seemed feral, more feral than usual, with his bare feet and chest, eyes glittering with something like anger, the glimmer like a knife blade turned to the side to reflect the light. "I know."

Adam's heart pulsed hard in his chest. He didn't know why he was scared. He was. The panic that coursed through him was akin to the way he felt when he knew, just knew his father was not going to be talked down from his rage, when he had that deliberate and hard look in his eye. That was when he went after Adam with a certain focus, the kind he only got through the bottom of a whiskey bottle. The kind that left Adam in a shocked daze, lying on the floor, blood dripping and body pulsing in pain.

"Well there's no reason to be here, is there? If it's empty," Adam said, automatically trying to reason with Ronan, as if he'd been threatened. "So we can go home. We should come back when Gansey's here."_ A witness. Someone to see what's happening. What's going to happen._

Despite their arguments, Adam hadn't felt physically threatened by Ronan before. He did now.

He wondered what Ronan had been dreaming before he'd come up.

Ronan tilted his head like a curious bird, just a little tick. Like a bird of prey about to swoop down and shred the rabbit who thought it was safe in the shade of a tree.

Adam's heart felt like that of a prey animal, wild and jerky and kicking. "So…I'm leaving."

Ronan shook his head once. His eyes were still narrow, head still cocked. When he took a step, all of his muscles coiled at once, like a cat about to pounce.

Adam stumbled back. "Why?" he demanded, wiping sweating hands on his jeans.

Ronan hesitated. "Why what?" he asked, his voice a husky growl.

It wasn't the clear, harsh voice Adam was used to hearing, and it sent a chill along his spine. "What do you want?"

Ronan stood stock still for a moment, and the feral look fell away, leaving behind a pale face and rounded eyes. "I don't know."

This Ronan was different, terrifying because Adam had never seen it before, but at least he wasn't homicidal. "Why don't you go to sleep?" he asked, keeping his distance. "Your bed is still here, right?"

Ronan jerked a shrug, his breath coming in sharply.

"I know I pissed you off, but I want to leave now," Adam said firmly, praying that the tone wouldn't set Ronan off again.

It did.

He blew out his breath. "Why don't you stay?"

"What?"

"Stay."

"Why?" Adam shook his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. He wasn't quite sure what to do with them. He looked around the darkened room, at Gansey's piles of books, at the desk and the mint plant and the rotary phone. The trampled, miniature version of Henrietta. Gansey's bed. There was a bag on the ground, a plastic bag with something tied around the handle.

"What's that?" Adam asked, because he needed a distraction.

"Blue threw it at me earlier and said to split it with Gansey." Ronan's tone was dismissive. He and Blue weren't exactly best friends.

Adam knew how he felt.

"What is it?"

"I didn't look."

"Did she say anything besides to split it with Gansey?" Adam asked in exasperation.

"She said it wasn't from her," Ronan said flatly. "Something about Calla or Persephone."

_How do you not remember which one?_ Adam thought, deeply annoyed. Neither name was _Ashley_ or _Amber_-like, easily mixed up or forgotten.

Adam studied Ronan for a moment. Obviously, because he hadn't been paying attention to her. He wondered why he disliked Blue somuch. Was it because she had joined their group in the middle of the search? That she'd changed thing? That her family clashed with his religion?

"I'm going to look."

Ronan made a wide, sweeping gesture, a way of saying _go the fuck ahead_ without wasting his breath.

Adam broke the purple ribbon tying the grocery bags together and peered inside. A plastic container of bacon sat atop of a cherry pie covered in cling wrap.

Puzzled, he stared into it for a long time, thoughts wheeling around his head. There was a lot of bacon jammed into the container. The pie was intricately made, so he thought it must have taken time to make. For the first time, he wished he had a cell phone to call Blue and ask her what this meant.

But she hadn't brought him pie or bacon, so obviously she didn't think it involved him.

"What?" Ronan asked, standing far back, arms crossed tightly.

"Well, it's not poison, unless she poisoned the pie. Probably they're cooking a lot over there, now that Maura's gone." That must've been it. "Calla or Persephone probably sent her to get rid of some of this stuff."

Ronan didn't come closer. "You should leave."

It was not a question, or a command. But it sounded like both. Adam's thoughts were confused. He glared at the bacon like it might tell him what was going on.

"Should I?" he asked finally, curling his fists atop his knees.

"Yes."

"_Can_ I?"

"I wasn't stopping you."

Adam let out a sharp laugh. "You would have."

Ronan's voice sounded closer. "You scared of me, Parrish?" It sounded like a dare, a plea, a laugh.

Adam was _scared _of whatever was happening. He was scared he'd kill someone close to him, he was scared Blue might be onto something about how his temper reacted. He wasn't sure if he was scared of Ronan, or his own feelings.

"Did Blue look okay?" he finally asked.

"She looked _fine,_" Ronan sneered, like _fine_ was something wrong.

It was strange, because Ronan had lightened up to Blue after she'd helped Gansey look for Matthew. Ronan adored Matthew, though he'd never say it quite like that, so Blue had helped herself when she'd helped Matthew. Not that it had been like that—her helping was a part of her. A decision made without her even stopping to think on it.

He'd lightened up since her mother disappeared, too, though it wasn't an obvious thing. He only snarled at her as much as he snarled at everyone else now, and possibly even less, because he was snarling at people less.

Now it seemed he was back to hating her for some particular reason, though that reason wasn't clear.

"I just wanted to know because she's probably worried about Maura," Adam said defensively.

Something softened. Adam couldn't tell what, but something did. There was something in Ronan that was sympathetic to her about the whole missing mother thing. It was just buried very, very deep, beneath scars, and alcohol, and anger and sadness.

Maura was underground, according to her note, and so was Glendower. But were they together? Had something drawn her there, or dragged her? Was she racing Gansey and the boys to wake him, or was she tugging them along, impatient to get there together?

"She looked annoyed," Ronan said finally, his voice still flat. "She threw the bag at me and said it was from Calla and Persephone and told me to split it with Gansey. Then she left."

"You didn't _say_ anything?"

Ronan gave him a bored look. "Like what?"

Adam shook his head. "Never mind." He popped open the container with his thumb. "Gansey isn't here, so I'm going to take some of this."

His appetite had become nearly unmanageable since Cabeswater had come back. He found himself ravenous at every turn. Not that he didn't know how to deal with hunger, but he wasn't sure when he'd last been so hungry so _often._

"You're leaving?" Ronan asked. His voice sounded younger than it ever had, at least to Adam. Young and angry and scared.

When he looked at Ronan, however, he looked like himself, standing back in the dark, arms crossed, chin tilted back, eyes narrowed.

"There's no reason to stay." Which was not an answer, Adam realized. Was he _looking_ for a reason to stay? Did he need one? He was welcome here. He knew that, despite the fact that he'd never let himself enjoy it.

"Fine." Ronan went to the door and opened it.

Adam was annoyed, feeling as though he'd been shoved. He stalked toward the door, cold bacon in hand, and stopped in front of Ronan. He snapped, "I don't know what I did to piss you off, but next time, I'll keep walking."

Ronan leaned forward. He did not lean down, which meant Adam had to tilt his head back to keep eye contact. He hadn't realized how much _smaller _he was than Ronan, a few inches seeming more like a foot from this new, somewhat helpless angle. He didn't like it.

"What?"

"I'm not pissed off," Ronan said with a cruel, curling smile.

Adam lifted an eyebrow. "Since I seem to be the one you're pissing on, I'd say you were." He kept his face and voice cool, but when he took a step back, he bumped into the door jamb, ruining the effect.

Ronan leaned forward more. Not threatening. The move reminded Adam inexplicably of an eager dog straining forward to greet someone.

"_What_, Ronan?"

That was when Ronan Lynch tipped his head forward until his forehead was pressed to Adam's, their eyes and noses lined up. The unexpected skin contact had Adam frozen in place, eyes wide and staring. Ronan didn't say anything, blue eyes locked with Adam's.

There was fear there, veiled behind some sort of handy disguise. Anger. Indifference. Whatever worked.

Adam started to speak, but stopped, because the motion of opening his mouth caused his lower lip to brush against Ronan's. His face went red. Ronan's did not. He simply kept his gaze on Adam, a hard, deliberate light in his eyes. Was he trying to communicate something? If he was, Adam was not getting the message.

He couldn't hear anything over his own heart, so if Ronan were to try to _tell him_ what the message was, he probably wouldn't have gotten it, anyway. His breath came and went rapidly, like a child who'd been running where he shouldn't have been. Scared, panicked, thrilled.

Ronan gripped Adam's upper arm tightly, holding him in place. Adam swallowed hard, eyes widening when Ronan tipped his chin down just enough so that their lips met lightly.

Adam jumped like he'd received a face-full of cold water. He felt like he had, too. He opened his mouth to say something, sliding his lips across Ronan's, the friction created slight, but enough to have his eyes fluttering closed momentarily. Ronan's hand moved from Adam's arm to his shoulder, then the side of his neck. His fingers were long and firm, pressing against his windpipe and his pulse, guiding Adam back against the wall.

Adam's own hands raised, part defense, part need, confused and scared and heated. Ronan's teeth grazed Adam's lip, then bit down before he pressed closer, pinning his body against Adam's against the door jamb, which dug painfully into his back, keeping him grounded.

_Dreaming? Nightmare? I don't understand._ What he did understand that Ronan was kissing him and he was kissing back and it didn't feel wrong, even when Ronan's hands grabbed at his hips and moved him back into the apartment, still moving his lips and tongue on Adam's.

Adam flung out his hand and the door slammed shut, the sound echoing like a shot in his head. He gripped at Ronan's bare shoulder, either to keep himself upright or just because he needed to hold onto something. His nails dug in, he pulled himself closer to Ronan just as they slammed into the wall beside the door. His teeth snagged at Ronan's upper lip.

"S-sor-" Adam began, before Ronan let out a deep growling noise, not exactly a protest.

He pressed his palms to either side of Adam's face suddenly, pulling his mouth away to catch his breath. He kissed him lightly between each inhale, eyes squeezed shut like he was afraid of what he might find when he opened them.

Adam was panting too, and shaking. He didn't understand his own body, his own thoughts. What was happening? What changed? Why did he want Ronan to kiss him again?

"You're shaking," Ronan observed. His voice was husky again, his lips bright red even in the dark.

"So are you," Adam shot back, because he was. He had questions. _Why did you do that? Who are you? Why did I let you do that?_ He examined his own reaction for signs that it was involuntary. Had he only let Ronan kiss him because he was afraid of saying no? More than likely not_._

What now?

Adam's eyes flicked toward the door, now firmly closed, and by his own hand.

Ronan's hand slid down to grip his jaw painfully tight. "What?" he demanded.

Adam's eyes narrowed. He was done being the victim. "Let go of me." His words were garbled by the inability to move his jaw, but his point was clear enough.

Ronan dropped his hands to his side. He looked like he'd been struck. Alive and pulsing and panting and wired.

"Do what you want."

Adam's heart raced. What was that supposed to mean? Was that a dismissal? _Leave or stay, I don't care _or was it, _Do what you want with me, but don't just stand there_? He couldn't tell. Sweat made his bangs stick to his forehead and temples.

Nerves made his pulse a rapid, unpredictable thing. He might pass out.

He stepped toward Ronan, fear making his extremities feel cold. His face felt hot, his lips tingly. With some surprise, he realized he was going to kiss Ronan this time, to see what it was like when he started things. What that would change, if anything.

**Ronan Lynch**

Ronan held himself still, his breath caught somewhere in his chest as Adam walked closer, until he had to stare up at him. His brows furrowed as he did, as if he were trying to figure out a riddle. Or figure out how to scold a child. He parted his lips.

He said, "I don't know how," with a look on his face like he would break at the wrong answer.

"How to what?" Ronan asked very precisely.

"To do what I want," Adam admitted it like a sin.

Something in the statement made Ronan mad, but he couldn't figure out what, so he kept quiet, waiting for Adam to figure out what it was he wanted to do.

"Why…" Adam began, fumbling for his question. Finally, he shook his head. "Never mind."

_Ask me something. I'll answer. I never lie._ But he wasn't sure he wanted to answer the questions Adam might have. Why he did it. When he realized. Why Adam. He didn't know the answers anyway.

Adam lifted himself suddenly onto the toes of his ratty sneakers and knocked his forehead against Ronan's, but he didn't stop to curse, he just angled his head and slanted his mouth across Ronan's.

The shiver that raced down Ronan's spine was probably more relief than anything—judgment might have broken something irreparable, at least tonight. Acceptance made him weak, but relieved.

Adam lacked finesse, but made up for it in enthusiasm, a meek and shy kind of enthusiasm that made Ronan want to guide him, though he wasn't sure where—the bed, outside, the ground? He pressed a hand to Adam's face, the delicate bones feeling bird-like under his palm. He instinctively pressed harder, as if he wanted to know how much pressure it would take to break the fragile.

_No,_ he thought as he slid his hand behind Adam's neck. _No, this is something I won't destroy._

When the door slammed open, he realized he might have already done that.

Adam let out a gasp as he jumped back and away, eyes enormous even in the dark.

Noah stood in the doorway while both boys stared at him, aghast. He shrugged both shoulders up to his ears. "It's no big deal," he said placidly. "I kissed Blue."

Ronan's eye ticked, and his gaze slid to Adam, who looked shocked and angry. It seemed like everyone in the group _but_ Ronan was infatuated with Blue Sargent.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me anyone was up here?" Adam demanded.

Noah smiled faintly and disappeared.

**END**


End file.
